Big Guns Needed - Blister Beetles! #31

Attacking the bean plant

I intended on writing about other things, older things I haven't gotten to, but this Blister Beetle hatch is way to big to put off.

Although they feed on bees and grasshopper eggs, Blister Beetles are also known to attack leaves which they are doing to our crops. The Blister Beetle genus, Epicauta, is highly toxic to horses. Horses can die after eating alfalfa containing a few of these nasty creatures. The toxic chemical the beetle releases is cantharidin which is what doctors use to remove warts.

Several on the corn

Lance accidentally stumbled on a hatch last evening in our yard. There must have been a hundred in a cluster - a new hatch. He captured one in a plastic baggy, which ticked the beetle off and he spewed his green poison. Once Lance figured out what it was, he did a search through the garden and found two more hatches. One was under the cherry tree and one next to the corn/bean rows. That group had hatched in a clump of weeds in the part of the field we don't garden, had spread onto the corn and beans. Lance was up until 10:30, with flashlight, killing them as they hatched. Luckily, the organic spray we use on the tiny black bugs that tried to take out our broccoli and spinach works on these beetles.

Hatching in the weeds

There was another hatch today near the corn and beans. This could happen several times between now and the end of July. Beetle Patrol will be an around the clock endeavor!


So now we can add Blister Beetle to our list of pestilent visitors which includes frost (killed eighty tomato plants, damaged the potato plants, froze off the flowers from the peach, apricot and blackberry bushes), wind which threatened our baby pepper plants and tomato plants, tiny black bugs that nearly destroyed all of our spinach, broccoli and rendered our radish tops really ugly.

Lance waging war on the Blister Beetles

The frost damage did not have a happy ending, although the blackberries are sending up more flowers so we should get some berries this year. We saved a few of the spinach and broccoli plants. The windbreaks have taken the stress off the peppers and tomatoes. And thank goodness Lance stumbled on the Blister Beetle hatch. If he hadn't, we probably would've lost all our corn and beans. Happy ending. It isn't over and he's going to have to patrol the fields often, but at least we know about them.


We may still have corn knee-high by the 4th of July!